Bitchiness in Going public

I’ve slept so much the past two nights. First nine hours, then ten and a half hours! I feel mostly normal, just a little back stiffness from being still for so long.

My friend S came over on Friday and I just couldn’t control my annoyance. S is someone I dated previously, but we are now fully platonic. He’s a bit autistic I think, and sometimes I have trouble dealing with it. On Thursday I got two new tattoos, and I sent him pics, and he did not respond in the typical polite and complimentary way that a friend should. He just made a comment about how he didn’t know color tattoos could be done all at once (??) and never said anything like “those look nice” or, “how exciting”. I probably should have called him out on that, but I am a weenie and he doesn’t take criticism well. Anyway, that kind of set the tone for how I was feeling about him, and it snowballed from there.

The reason he came over was to go to trivia. This event was held at a winery, which is not the most fun for me due to the fact that I do not drink anymore. S is really into trivia. He keeps extensive notes on all sorts of topics, listens to trivia podcasts, etc. This means he knows most answers I know, so I can’t contribute much. Winning is REALLY important to him, so I have to tread lightly if I disagree with his answer, and I always make him give the final approval on any answer I come up with.

S drinks at trivia (he had probably 3 glasses of wine), and as a sober person it is annoying to be around an inebriated person. He just gets extra socially… weird, his breath reeks of alcohol when we’re whispering about how to answer the trivia question, and then later on he gets super tired and out of it.

In general, his autistic traits just really grate on me. Oftentimes conversations are very one-sided. I’ll say something, and he won’t recognize I even spoke. Sometimes I’m even like “hello? Did you hear me?” and then he’ll repeat what I said, affirming he heard me. But dude, you gotta respond to things I say. Another example of something that annoys me is if we’re out somewhere together, he will sometimes be walking 2 or 3 paces ahead of me, and will do it for a long period of time. It feels so disrespectful! I’ve called him out on this one, and he has gotten a little better with noticing when he’s leaving me behind.

Anyway, I was just… not reacting well to him this weekend. I guess if I were reading this I might wonder why I’m still friends with this person given he doesn’t treat me super well. I do think S is a good person and I don’t think he ever intends to treat me badly. We have some things in common and generally we get along well. I should be more tolerant. It just doesn’t feel good to know that I’m not being my best self around someone.